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Chesapeake Bay Crab Scraping. 
About half an hour before daybreak a man 
swinging a lantern came down the echoing 
planks of Philpot’s wharf on Mobjack Bay. 
Stars were shining overhead, and the swell 
out of the Chesapeake was sighing as it 
swept among the wharf piling. Lights reflected 
across the water, tipping the wave tops with 
short bars. A minute later a push-car came 
down the iron-strap railway on the wharf, “lonk- 
ing” with a sound like a wild goose. On the 
car were several chunks of wood for a galley 
stove. Captain James, owner of the gasolene 
dredge Laura, and his crew, pushed the car. 
The wood was thrown aboard the Laura, lines 
were cast off, the engine started and the boat 
the drum was braked, hauling the scrapes along 
the bottom. All three listened. 
“No,” one said, “you ain’t got ’em yet; no 
suh.” 
On pulling a handle, the drum began to wind 
up, and in came a dredge with water and mud 
falling away from it. No, nothing yet. 
Two more casts were made, and then the 
chains began to give forth a crackling sound. 
“Theh they be!” the sailors shouted. “Hyar 
they be!” 
When the dredge was hauled up, fifty angry- 
eyed, pincher-thrusting green crabs came over 
the side in the bag and were dumped on the 
deck. 
“Throw over the buoy!” the captain ordered, 
and a corked jug, tied by a long cord fastened 
steadily and seized each crab by the tail with a 
sure grip. Rarely he lifted one by a claw. He 
boasted that he had never been nipped by a crab. 
In spite of his apparent slowness, his barrels 
were filled quite as rapidly as those of his mate. 
Four barrels were filled in an hour by the men 
on the Laura. 
The Laura reached the grounds about 8:15 
o’clock. When the workers had a moment wait¬ 
ing for a dredge, the deck being clean, they 
looked toward Mobjack expectantly. They dis¬ 
covered at last another gasolene boat coming. 
“Hue-e!” one exclaimed. “Theh comes Cap’n 
Dick, huntin’ foh crabs. I be’n expectin’ him.” 
Captain Dick came chugging out till he was 
about one hundred yards south of the Laura’s 
b(U0y. Then he threw over a dredge. Two 
THE CRABBERS AT WORK. 
One of the Chesapeake Bay Crab Dredgers. 
Turning Out the Contents of a Crab Scrape. 
turned down the bay in the gloom. It was a 
ten horsepower motorboat 47.5 feet long by 13.3 
feet wide. The crabs sought that morning were 
some distance out in the bay, lying in beds on 
the bottom. Two hours’ run through placid 
waters, most of the way toward the rising sun, 
brought the boat to the place. 
On the way the two sailors overhauled the two 
scrapes or dredges. A scrape is a sharp-edged 
bar of iron forty inches long, behind which is 
a chain or link bag; sometimes a cotton bag is 
used. The bag mouth is kept open by an iron 
hoop. Strap irons run from the corner of the 
open mouth of the bag to a loop to which a 
chain or rope is tied. The bar scrapes along 
the bay bottom towed by the rope. The scraper 
breaks off or loosens anything on the bottom and 
the bag catches the object. 
When the Laura was several miles offshore, 
Captain James said, “This looks like the place; 
throw over.” The sailors threw over the 
dredges, one on each side of the boat. The 
chain clanked out noisily, the boat straining as 
to a chunk of iron, was tossed clear to mark 
the edge of the school of crabs. Then the empty 
dredge was thrown over, and the crabs snatched 
up and dropped into barrels. The debris of 
shells, dead crabs, flatfish and what not was 
shoveled over the side. When the scrape had 
dragged along 175 or 200 yards of bottom it was 
hauled in again, emptied and thrown over. 
On sailing vessels, instead of hauling in the 
dredges with power, it must be done by hand 
power, work that is back breaking. As few as 
three dozen and as many as nine dozen crabs 
were caught in a haul of a dredge. The scrapes 
were hauled about ten times each in half ^n 
hour. 
As fast as the crabs were dumped on the deck 
they were snatched up and dropped into barrels 
by the two sailors. This required deft work. 
One of the men was a lithe, active bayman who 
depended on quickness of hand to keep his 
fingers out of the claws of the crabs. He had 
been nipped many times. The other, a heavy 
man, worked more methodically. He worked 
minutes later he hauled in. Then he threw 
again, swinging around in semi-circle. 
“Theh!” exclaimed one of the deck men. 
“He’s found crabs! Oveh goes his buoy! He’s 
got ’em buoyed now. He knows where the 
crabs is!” 
Captain James chuckled. “I could come with¬ 
in a squirrel’s jump of these crabs if I could 
see that point of woods there!” 
Evidently Captain Dick had to have guidance 
in finding crab beds. 
“Sho!” one of the sailors grunted. “He most 
throwed his buoy in ouh drudge.” 
The men on the boats passed the time of day 
peacefully enough as they plowed back and forth 
over the great shoal of crabs. Soon the scrap¬ 
ing stirred up the muddy bottom, and the beauti¬ 
ful water was then turned a muddy drab. There 
was no breeze, just a glaring, sunny water sur¬ 
face with little oily streaks here and there where 
the dredges had released bubbles in the bottom. 
The crabs were put in the barrels with much 
care. They were laid in back up, and when one 
